Hot Stamper

Miles Davis Kind of Blue

A very good sounding copy with Hot Stamper sound from start to finish - quiet vinyl

This beauty is tonally correct and just full of vintage 30th Street Studio Magic

This properly mastered '70's reissue is your chance to hear KOB sound right for a change

"Kind of Blue isn't merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it's an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence."

Scores of differently mastered versions have been cut over the years, but to find one that’s lively and dynamic yet still communicates the relaxed nature of this music is a trick that not many of them can pull off.

Our Position

Based on the evidence it is our considered opinion that many of the best sounding copies are pressed on vinyl with the rather common domestic plain Red Label from the '70s. We're fully aware of just how outrageous a statement that may be to you jazz collectors out there, and even more outrageous to the audiophiles reading this, the ones who are still holding on to the idea that Originals Have the Best Sound.

But we've known about these wonderful sounding Kind Of Blue reissues for more than two decades, and in all of those years, played back on many different stereo systems, we have yet to hear any early pressing that would make us change our minds.

What About The Early Pressings?

Having played scores of different copies of this record over the years, close to a hundred by now I would guess, we think we know Kind of Blue as a recording about as well as anyone can know it. The tube mastered original Six Eye Stereo copies have wonderfully lush, smooth sound. We've heard many of them. The 360s from the '60s often (but not always) split the difference -- less Tubey Magical, but cleaner and more true to the sound of live music. The Red Labels are all over the map, ranging from smeary and dull to out of this world.

If you cut the album with tubes it will bring out some qualities not as evident on this pressing. But there will be drawbacks as well. It's a matter of trade-offs. There is no copy that will satisfy everyone, just as there is no speaker or amplifier that will satisfy everyone.

Now don't get us wrong. We love tubey colorations as much as the next person. We say so all over this site. But there is no way that many of the specific qualities of this record exist on those early, tube cuttings. They simply didn't have the technology. The technology they did have is wonderful in its own way. And this record is wonderful in its own, very different, way. This is the sound we prefer.

Unimpeachable Audiophile Credentials

We know we're asking a lot of money for a record that any jazz record dealer would be embarrassed to charge more than $25 for. (Actually, these are starting to sell for $40+ pretty regularly on eBay and elsewhere. Apparently, the word got out that these can sound incredible. Blame us!)

However, with all due respect, jazz record dealers don't know anything about sound. They know about collectibility. They know about price guides. They know their market -- jazz collectors -- and we know ours: audiophiles. This record has the audiophile goods. And who else but your friends at Better Records are going to be able to tell you that?

Quick Listening Test for Side One

This is an easy one. Just listen to the trumpet at the start of Freddie Freeloader. Most copies do not fully convey the transient information of Miles' horn, causing it to have an easily recognizable quality we talk about all the time on the site: smear.

No two pressings will have precisely the same amount of smear on his trumpet, so look for the least smeary copy that does everything else right too. (Meaning simply that smear is important, but not all-important.)

TRACK LISTING

Side One

So What
Freddie Freeloader
Blue in Green

Side Two

All Blues
Flamenco Sketches

AMG 5 Star Rave Review

Kind of Blue isn't merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it's an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence.

Why does Kind of Blue posses such a mystique? Perhaps because this music never flaunts its genius. It lures listeners in with the slow, luxurious bassline and gentle piano chords of "So What." From that moment on, the record never really changes pace — each tune has a similar relaxed feel, as the music flows easily.

Yet Kind of Blue is more than easy listening. It's the pinnacle of modal jazz — tonality and solos build from the overall key, not chord changes, giving the music a subtly shifting quality. All of this doesn't quite explain why seasoned jazz fans return to this record even after they've memorized every nuance.

They return because this is an exceptional band — Miles, Coltrane, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb — one of the greatest in history, playing at the peak of its power. As Evans said in the original liner notes for the record, the band did not play through any of these pieces prior to recording. Davis laid out the themes before the tape rolled, and then the band improvised.

The end results were wondrous and still crackle with vitality. Kind of Blue works on many different levels. It can be played as background music, yet it amply rewards close listening. It is advanced music that is extraordinarily enjoyable. It may be a stretch to say that if you don't like Kind of Blue, you don't like jazz — but it's hard to imagine it as anything other than a cornerstone of any jazz collection.

Jazziz Rave Review

As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time," says Bill Evans in the liner notes to Kind of Blue. "Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with a sure reference to the primary conception." Amen. During the past 40 years, the performances Davis' stimulated from Evans, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, and Wynton Kelly have become some of the most storied in jazz, and all of them - classics such as "Freddie the Freeloader," "All Blues," "Blue in Green," and, of course, "So What" (featured) - are featured on the Columbia/Legacy reissue.

- JAZZIZ Magazine

Engineer Extraordinaire

Frederick "Fred" Plaut was a recording engineer and amateur photographer. He was employed by Columbia Records during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, eventually becoming the label's chief engineer.

Plaut engineered sessions for what would result in many of Columbia's famous albums, including the original cast recordings of South Pacific, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, jazz LPs Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis, Time Out by Dave Brubeck, Mingus Ah Um and Mingus Dynasty by Charles Mingus.
CBS 30th Street Studio

CBS 30th Street Studio, also known as Columbia 30th Street Studio, and nicknamed "The Church", was an American recording studio operated by Columbia Records from 1949 to 1981 located at 207 East 30th Street, between Second and Third Avenues in Manhattan, New York City.

It was considered by some in the music industry to be the best sounding room in its time and others consider it to have been the greatest recording studio in history. A large number of recordings were made there in all genres, including Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (1959), Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story (Original Broadway Cast recording, 1957), Percy Faith's Theme from A Summer Place (1960), and Pink Floyd's The Wall (1979).

Recording studio

Having been a church for many years, it had been abandoned and empty for sometime, and in 1949 it was transformed into a recording studio by Columbia Records.

"There was one big room, and no other place in which to record", wrote John Marks in an article in Stereophile magazine in 2002.

The recording studio had 100 foot high ceilings, a 100 foot floorspace for the recording area, and the control room was on the second floor being only 8 by 14 feet. Later, the control room was moved down to the ground floor.

"It was huge and the room sound was incredible," recalls Jim Reeves, a sound technician who had worked in it. "I was inspired," he continues "by the fact that, aside from the artistry, how clean the audio system was."

Musical artists

Many celebrated musical artists from all genres of music used the 30th Street Studio for some of their most famous recordings.

Bach: The Goldberg Variations, the 1955 debut album of the Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould, was recorded in the 30th Street Studio. It was an interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988), the work launched Gould's career as a renowned international pianist, and became one of the most well-known piano recordings. On May 29, 1981, a second version of the Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould was recorded in this studio, and would be the last production by the famous studio.

Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis recorded almost exclusively at the 30th Street Studio during his years under contract to Columbia, including his album Kind of Blue (1959). Other noteworthy jazz musicians having recorded in this place: Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck.

In 1964, Bob Dylan and record producer Tom Wilson were experimenting with their own fusion of rock and folk music. The first unsuccessful test involved overdubbing a "Fats Domino early rock & roll thing" over Dylan's earlier, recording of "House of the Rising Sun", using non-electric instruments, according to Wilson. This took place in the Columbia 30th Street Studio in December 1964. It was quickly discarded, though Wilson would more famously use the same technique of overdubbing an electric backing track to an existing acoustic recording with Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence".

Fred Plaut, Engineer Extraordinaire

Frederick "Fred" Plaut was a recording engineer and amateur photographer. He was employed by Columbia Records during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, eventually becoming the label's chief engineer.

Plaut engineered sessions for what would result in many of Columbia's famous albums, including the original cast recordings of South Pacific, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, jazz LPs Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis, Time Out by Dave Brubeck, Mingus Ah Um and Mingus Dynasty by Charles Mingus.